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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24234187">Edge of the stream</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/unknownlifeform/pseuds/unknownlifeform'>unknownlifeform</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Compilation of Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Conversations, Gen, Light Angst, Mentioned Aerith Gainsborough, Mentioned Cloud Strife, sephiroth's remnants are also mentioned, this is probably not how the lifestream works but whatever</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-05-17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-05-17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-02 19:14:43</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,985</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24234187</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/unknownlifeform/pseuds/unknownlifeform</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>After Geostigma is cured, two souls in the Lifestream have a chat about lost friends, family additions, and swords.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Zack Fair &amp; Angeal Hewley, Zack Fair &amp; Cloud Strife</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>36</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Edge of the stream</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>...man how am I pumping out ff7 fics so fast this is absurd I'm not a fast writer usually<br/>Anyways I have a lot of feelings about Advent Children in particular and also the last lines of dialogue popped up into my head while I was trying to fall asleep and I had to give them a context somehow. Enjoy!</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>"Enjoying the view?" Zack asked, sitting down next to Angeal.</p>
<p>Well, sort of sitting. Being a soul in the Lifestream was a strange kind of existence. Angeal was shaped like the man he had once been, and so was Zack, but they did not have bodies or anything of the sort. Their souls wore that appearance out of habit, but it was no more real than a trick of the light.</p>
<p>"The city looks better," Angeal said. So long as Geostigma had lasted, anyone watching Edge from the Lifestream had seen it foggy, as if through murky water. Now that the plague had washed away, it looked clearer, healthier.</p>
<p>As healthy as anything could be this close to Midgar, anyways. The land was still barren around it.</p>
<p>Zack swung his legs, dangling from the cliff they sat on. "It does. Hope they'll be able to rebuild properly."</p>
<p>"I just hope we'll have less kids joining us," Angeal replied. That had been the worst part of it, in his opinion. Geostigma had hit children harder than adults. Too many of them had entered the Lifestream in the past two years, far too long before they were meant to.</p>
<p>Zack hummed in agreement. They sat in silence, watching as the setting sun disappeared and night fell on this side of the Planet. They might have stayed there for hours, but they were not bothered by the stone their ghostly forms sat on, nor by the passage of time itself. That tended to lose meaning, after one was dead for a while.</p>
<p>"You know," Zack said, at last, "Midgar always looked so small from here. It weirded me out, the first time I noticed. It was so huge when I moved there, but walk away a little and suddenly it didn't seem bigger than Gongaga."</p>
<p>Angeal smiled. "I know. It was a shock moving there from Banora."</p>
<p>"And Banora was still bigger than Gongaga."</p>
<p>"Gongaga is barely a town, Zack. How many people live there, twenty?"</p>
<p>"Don't be rude. It's gotta be fifty, at least."</p>
<p>Angeal chuckled. "Apologies, then."</p>
<p>"Wonder how my parents are doing. It's been a while since I went to watch over them," Zack said.</p>
<p>Angeal turned to him. Emotions were hard to hide when one was a soul, and Zack had a certain subdued look to him. "You ok, Zack? Not like you to get melancholic."</p>
<p>"What can I say, fatherhood changes you."</p>
<p>Angeal huffed. Trust Zack and Aerith to be crazy enough to take a look at those three damaged Remnants and decided they were going to adopt. "And tell me, how are the kids, <em>dad</em><span>?"</span></p>
<p>
  <span>"Sticking to Aerith like deadly and kind of terrifying ducklings. For being so desperate about getting mother, they're having a pretty hard time wrapping their heads around having one. It's a little sad. By the way, I expect you to babysit, sometimes."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Am I to be uncle Angeal, then?"</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Yep. They'll be delighted about a new family member. They'll cry on you for a few hours, probably."</span>
</p>
<p>"You're not leaving me a choice," Angeal said.</p>
<p>"Nope."</p>
<p>That was going to be weird. Angeal honestly didn't know what to think of the Remnants. He pitied them, given the circumstances they'd been born in, but they were also killers and kidnappers.</p>
<p>Good thing they seemed to have latched on Aerith. She'd taken her new role in stride, determined to make sure she was going to give those three children in adult bodies all that they needed. Angeal regretted not having met her in life. She was a good woman, and they'd become good friends in the Lifestream.</p>
<p>He was a little confused on how had Zack ended up being given the role of father, and it was more than a little funny to think about it. But if Zack was fine with it, then Angeal could only support him and his new little family.</p>
<p>"Still no news about the original one?" Zack asked.</p>
<p>Angeal shook his head. "None."</p>
<p>Sephiroth was an old wound by now, but it still ached. At this point Angeal had no idea if he would ever meet Sephiroth again, if the Lifestream would even allow him in or if the Remnants were all that was left of his friend. And if Sephiroth's soul was indeed out there, Angeal had no idea whether he could reason with him. The Lifestream healed a lot, with time, but Sephiroth had snapped much further and much worse than anyone else.</p>
<p>"By the way, and this may be a pointless question, but what about-"</p>
<p>"No news of Genesis, either," Angeal said, predicting where Zack's question would go.</p>
<p>"Ah."</p>
<p>The other sore spot. He wasn't dead, of this they were all sure, but he had also disappeared entirely after his fight with Zack. Angeal had looked for him everywhere, swimming through the Lifestream to every place he could think of, but there were no traces of him.</p>
<p>His best guess was that Genesis was in Midgar, somewhere. That was the only place Angeal could not rule out, because it was a struggle to get there. Aerith's church was the only place in the city he could reach easily. The Lifestream was returning to it, but slowly. Reaching Midgar was not nearly impossible as it used to, with all the Mako reactors working, but it was still hard.</p>
<p>One time Angeal had forced himself to look for Genesis through the rubble of the slums, moving closer and closer to the center, until he had ended up becoming so weak he had lost grip on himself entirely. He'd spent days floating without direction, before he'd gathered up enough force of will to separate himself from the souls all around him.</p>
<p>Maybe after what Aerith did now the Lifestream would return to Midgar sooner, and Angeal would be able of looking for longer. Angeal still did not know just what kind of powers the girl had, but he understood why Sephiroth had killer her. Had she lived, she would have destroyed him entirely long before Cloud did.</p>
<p>The darkness was broken by bright lights in the sky above Edge.</p>
<p>"Are those fireworks?" Angeal asked.</p>
<p>"Looks like it."</p>
<p>It seemed the population was going all out with the celebration. "I think it's the first time I've seen fireworks in Edge."</p>
<p>"Maybe the WRO decided it was time to throw a party."</p>
<p>"Or maybe Rufus Shinra is throwing it," Angeal said. He couldn't say he knew the man, but he could imagine Rufus had to be quite happy that Geostigma was cured.</p>
<p>"Nah, doesn't seem like the type to me. But if he doesn't use all his money to help those people I'll haunt his ass."</p>
<p>"We're not ghosts, Zack."</p>
<p>"I'll figure out a way." Zack paused. "And Cloud could feel me, back then. Both me and Aerith. He heard us. Saw us, too."</p>
<p>That had Angeal frown. In all the years he'd been dead, he'd never had any of the living notice his presence. "He could?"</p>
<p>"Yes. He was between life and death most of the time, granted, but I know he saw us back in the church."</p>
<p>"Maybe it was Aerith's powers," Angeal said, because anything weird happening in the Lifestream seemed to go back to her, somehow.</p>
<p>"Maybe."</p>
<p>Then again, Cloud Strife could hardly be considered normal.</p>
<p>"You know," Zack said, "he was still beating himself up about me."</p>
<p>"You were his friend. You gave your life for him. It's not surprising."</p>
<p>Zack shrugged. "He shouldn't feel guilty about my death. It was a good one."</p>
<p>That it was. Angeal had been sad to see Zack lose his life when he was still so young, with so much to live for still, but he'd been proud too. Zack would have argued, but Angeal did think in many ways Zack had been a better man than him. Zack's death, at least, had been more honorable than Angeal's.</p>
<p>"And it wasn't just my death that bothered him. He was angry at himself for forgetting." Zack huffed. "As if it was his fault. I remember the state he was in, it's a damn miracle he even managed to come out of his coma."</p>
<p>"Put yourself in his place. If you forgot about a friend entirely, how'd you feel?"</p>
<p>"Like, if I forgot about you? No offense, Angeal, but I forgot most of your lectures the moment you were done with them."</p>
<p>Angeal gave him a push, and Zack laughed. "You're a brat," Angeal said.</p>
<p>"Just kidding, you were too good at drilling them in my brain. But... I get it, yeah. I'd feel guilty too. I would have just hoped he didn't spend two years brooding about it. I had to reach him from the afterlife to get him to move on. Don't get me wrong, I love him, but he's a mess."</p>
<p>"Do you miss him?"</p>
<p>"A little. I miss seeing him happy, mostly. He was always a bit grumpy, but I can count on one hand the times I saw him laugh in the past two years."</p>
<p>"Not surprising, given what he's been through," Angeal said. Yes, Cloud definitely could use a therapist, from what Angeal saw, but everything considered, he was about as well adjusted as could be expected of him.</p>
<p>Zack sighed. "Wish I'd been there to help him more."</p>
<p>"Don't. Thinking about '<em>what if</em>'s will lead you nowhere," Angeal said, clasping a hand on his former student's shoulder.</p>
<p>"I know, I know."</p>
<p>He'd still wonder, probably. Angeal knew from experience how hard it was to keep oneself from doing that, even when it was pointless and only brought more pain.</p>
<p>Angeal himself had been doing for years now. What if he had fought harder? What if he had struggled more to keep Genesis from snapping? What if he had lived longer, what if he had been there when Sephiroth had found out about Jenova, what if he had helped his old friend understand that he was no monster and did not have to do what Jenova wanted of him?</p>
<p>Pointless questions, only useful to torment him. He'd seen what the degradation had done to Genesis, turning him into the opposite of what he had once been. If Angeal had lived longer, he would have gone mad, too, and that was the end of it.</p>
<p>Edge seemed to be going through all the fireworks they had gathered in two years to celebrate the disappearance of the plague. It wasn't the perfectly coordinated shows Shinra used to throw in Midgar, planned down to the last sparkle. There were random bursts of red and white and gold, not trying to look good, only to bring some happiness to all those kids who had been dying at the corners of the streets mere days before.</p>
<p>"There's one thing I really wish Cloud wouldn't have done," Zack said.</p>
<p>"What is it?"</p>
<p>Zack looked up, to the higher cliff a little to their left.</p>
<p>Even in the dark, Angeal could still see the Buster Sword, planted in the ground Zack had once bled out on. "Why?"</p>
<p>"It's too much. A flower would have been good enough. He didn't need to make me a whole memorial."</p>
<p>"Didn't you always say you wanted to be a hero? That's how heroes get remembered."</p>
<p>Zack shook his head, a smile on his lips. "Still too much. He could have just commissioned a statue of me."</p>
<p>"But that wouldn't have been as real," Angeal said.</p>
<p>"I thought you'd be on my side on this. That's your sword, Angeal."</p>
<p>Angeal shrugged. "It's Cloud's now, he can do whatever he wants with it. And I would have done the same, in his place."</p>
<p>"Sure, Commander Wear, Tear and Rust."</p>
<p>Honestly, Angeal did itch a little to come back to life and clean the rust off that blade. But still.</p>
<p>"Thought I'd told you before, Zack. You're a bit more important than my sword."</p>
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